The Coastal Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP) was a competitive national program administered by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and each state’s coastal zone management program was eligible to participate. The last CELCP competition was for the FY2012 funding cycle. Funding for CELCP as a national program has not been included in the President’s request or appropriated since 2013. Since then, NOAA has kept the program active in the Great Lakes with funding through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has supported several projects. However, due to low funding availability and high administrative costs, NOAA is ending the CELCP program in both the Great Lakes and on the national level in FY2018. more…